The Big Debates

The digital environment has a significant impact on children. It poses strong challenges but also ample opportunities for the exercise of children’s rights. Its landscape is complex and rapidly evolving, and the discussions that are taking place today will shape children’s relationship to technology for decades to come.

In this series, we apply a children’s rights approach to the most significant debates affecting children in the digital environment.

 
 
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Read our latest article

 
 
 

Letting kids on social media is like sending them to Mars (and other bizarre analogies)


2 APRIL 2026

Are policies that deny children access to social media just "restrictions" or outright bans? And is letting children on social media more like sending them to Mars or to a nightclub? Language and metaphors have immense power in policymaking, and they’re not being used responsibly.
 
 
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Debates

 

Letting kids on social media is like sending them to Mars (and other bizarre analogies)

2 APRIL 2026

Are policies that deny children access to social media just "restrictions" or outright bans? And is letting children on social media more like sending them to Mars or to a nightclub? Language and metaphors have immense power in policymaking, and they’re not being used responsibly.

To ban or not to ban?: That should not be the question

10 FEBRUARY 2026

Should governments ban social media for children? From a children's rights perspective, this is the wrong question. Instead, we should start by asking the right ones.